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Feline Groovy: Play Out Your "Crazy Cat Person" Fantasy Via This New App

Are you too popular? Are you more interesting than the average person, and suffer no lack of friends due to this? Do you often find yourself graced with many socially-engaging options and fun things to enrich your life? And do you hate the hell out of all of that? Never fear...now, you can become a crazy cat person, at least in the realm of apps...

Questioning your sanity has never been so adorable!(Image courtesy notarybatonrouge.info.)

Thanks to the new Japanese app Neko Atsume, you can now cultivate a collection of cats on your smartphone, where they smell less but are there for you all the more. According to policygenius.com, the app, which is written entirely in Japanese and translates as "collecting cats", gifts you with the joy of animal ownership, yet none of the toxoplasma gondii.

This, but with slightly less clawing.(Image courtesy angelsite.wordpress.com.)

Like Gigapets of old, you must frequently feed and entertain these creatures to win their e-attention. You start by leaving food and toys in your virtual backyard to lure them in, then - and here's the difficult part - you close the app. When you reopen it, you may find yourself the Sultan of Strays, or, if you haven't plotted the fanciest of feasts, you may find that the furballs have taken up residence in your neighbors' more attractive yards. The catgrass is always greener, etc.

Obviously, your e-cats are sensitive beasts to be treated as royalty.(Image courtesy dailymail.co.uk.)

There's no notifications and no way of telling what feline friends may accrue. You just need to keep closing and reopening the app, like so many tentative cracks of your back porch door as you eagerly await the mewling yelps that will signify your adoptive descent into weird spinsterdom (or weird dude-spinsterdom, whatever.)

Lunacy doesn't discriminate.(Image courtesy 9laughs.com.)

So now you're the T.S. Eliot of your smartphone neighborhood, and Magical Mister Mistofelees and his gang of (practical?) pals have taken up residence in your e-yard. What now? Well, you can take pictures of your cats, cataloging them in albums, and seeking out rare specimens. That's...fun? You can also earn in-game currency in the form of silver and gold fish, as your cats' appreciation of your efforts translates (at least in this magical world) to something transactionally valuable. Gold fish can be used to expand your new cat overlords' domain until they have the run of your place.

Pictured: just a minor infestation in Neko Atsume.(Image courtesy vice.com.)

Because the world is a strange and terrible place, actual currency can be exchanged for the virtual gold fish. You know, instead of using it for literally any other worthwhile endeavor in the real world, with real people and experiences. But that's your choice. You know what your kitties need best.

Neko Atsume is available for iOS and Android. On the offhand chance there is both a greater divine being and the persistence of human spirit, may god have mercy on your soul.